


Downtime

by misura



Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-10
Updated: 2011-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-28 14:27:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor cracks under pressure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Downtime

The question had never been whether they (and that was definitely a 'them' they, not an 'us' they) could cover up Connor's absence, of course. The question had simply been _how long_.

" - so basically," Danny finished, "they're annoying, but mostly harmless." Connor would have smiled there, Becker thought, both at the idea of spending the next few days chasing half a dozen creatures that looked like slightly over-sized pink poodles and at the Douglas Adams reference - although that last was most likely lost on Lester.

"Fantastic." Becker could pull off a pokerface as good as any soldier who'd ever been ordered to guard a door leading to a completely empty and utterly uninteresting room. Lester, on the other hand, was a _civil servant_. It was probably a good thing it didn't fit his image to play things like poker. "Speaking of which, someone seems to be missing?"

Danny's pokerface was - well, he'd been a cop. He'd also cleaned out Becker more than once in a 'friendly' game of poker, so Becker wasn't too quick to judge, only in this particular instance ... well. "Someone missing?"

"Young, bit stupid," Lester said.

Danny continued with his 'wide-eyed and stupid' impression. Sarah and Abby tried to offer support by looking blank. Becker wondered why he'd ever agreed to 'let them handle it'.

"Wears a hat." Lester didn't look like he was enjoying himself, but then he rarely did. "Eternal student. Somehow put together that thing over there." A gesture at the anomaly detector.

"Oh, you mean Connor." Sarah cracked first under the non-existent pressure.

Abby's act of 'dumb blonde' might have been more convincing if Becker hadn't seen her drop-kick a creature twice her weight. "Oh, _Connor_. Right."

"Connor," Danny said, nodding slowly, before he looked around. "Seems he's not here right now, sorry. Did you need him for something?"

Lester's lips might have curled up a fraction of an inch at the suggestion that he might 'need' Connor for anything. "I do believe he's being paid to be here. Not a lot of money, of course, but even so."

"He had to go ... somewhere," Sarah said.

"Dentist appointment," Abby put in. Becker thought he might have almost believed her if he'd been in Lester's shoes and a complete idiot.

"Yeah, that's right," Danny said. "He mentioned it to me yesterday."

"Really?" Becker managed not to wince at that tone. "That's odd. I could have sworn he wasn't here yesterday, either. So clearly, either of us is delusional."

Danny didn't so much as twitch. "Maybe I misremembered. Could have been two days ago." Lester raised one eyebrow. "Or even longer."

"Indeed." Lester looked at Becker. Becker attempted to look attentive but bored, like the current topic of conversation couldn't have possibly interested him less. "Well, I'm afraid there are some rules to follow around here. And I'd so hate to have to fire someone."

Sarah bit her lip, most likely to hold back the comment that Connor wouldn't particularly care about being fired. Abby looked impassive.

"He'll be here tomorrow," Danny said.

"Excellent," Lester said, nodding at Becker, making it an order: _see to it_.

Becker nodded back. _Yes, sir._

 

All things considered, _finding_ Connor ought to have been the first problem to tackle. It wasn't. Becker asked Sarah, who asked Abby, who looked at Becker like he was her might-have-been boyfriend's new boyfriend and she was one of those girls who thought being gay was rather cool - much cooler than finding out your might-have-been boyfriend had found a girl he liked better than he'd liked you, anyway.

Becker might have suspected a trap if it hadn't been for Danny not being anywhere in the room. As it was, Abby gave him an address and the sincere assurance that she trusted him. (Becker managed not to ask: _to do what?_.) Sarah looked at him as if she imagined ways in which he might persuade Connor to stop acting like a child and get on with the serious business of saving the world. Becker decided that while it was never comfortable when someone undressed you with their eyes, it was even less so when they then undressed _another_ person as well as put the two of you in positions that made you very much aware of your utter lack of exhibitionism.

Of course, it could be he was just imagining things.

 

The first thing Connor said when he opened the door was: "Oh." The second thing was: "It's you,' and it was said in a tone that seemed to imply that, of all people Connor had thought might _possibly_ come knocking on his door, Becker had not been among the ten most welcome ones, although he might have squeezed into the top thirty or so.

"Yes." It seemed a safe, neutral thing to say, as opposed to saying something the lines of _'yes, you idiot, it's me, and guess how happy I am that you're annoying Lester?'_ followed by the action-speaking-louder-than-words of slamming Connor against a wall.

Connor grinned. "Wow."

"Yes," Becker said dryly.

"No, I mean, it's that in these movies, see, when the bad guys come to the good guy's apartment and they knock, he always opens the door and they mug him and all that, and I kind of thought that was really dumb, you know? Just - if you're on the run for some bad guys, you don't just open the door because someone knocks on it, see? Simple. And now here I am. Silly." Connor looked wistfully at the door. Becker calculated the time it would take him to break it down, should Connor decide to shut it.

It would be quicker to simply prevent him from shutting it. "You're not on the run, are you?" On the other hand, breaking it down would make much more of an impression. "And I'm not a bad guy." Continuing on a foot: the line between 'impressive' and 'intimidating' was rather thin, and Becker didn't think Connor would respond well to intimidation. "And let's face it: you're not much of a good guy, either."

Connor looked slightly offended. "Yes, I am."

Becker crossed his arms over his chest and put on his 'your fake papers are very impressive, and I don't doubt you spent a lot of time or money on them, but I have my orders and you do not, in fact, have the authority to counter them' face. In non-military terms, its implication could be summarized as: 'I'm not impressed, but I'm too polite to say that out loud'.

"I used to be," Connor said, looking less offended and more - well. "D'you want to come in?" Like someone who might invite someone else inside for a cup of coffee with a generous helping of sympathy. (Coffee to be provided by Connor; sympathy, of course, to be provided by Becker.)

 

The apartment looked like it belonged to someone who'd have been perfectly happy to leave it a mess, but who simply hadn't been in the mood to be bothered to make one. As far as safehouses went, it wasn't bad, assuming you discounted the fact that it had windows, only one door and no possibility to get in or out without being spotted by at least a dozen other people.

About the only thing it had going for it was the fact that there was coffee. It probably wouldn't be very good or very strong coffee, but Becker had grown used to not being too picky.

"You can drop in the retcon now; my back's turned," Connor said, rummaging about it a drawer.

"I work for the ARC, not Torchwood." Becker didn't add: _'and so do you'_.

"Sugar?" Connor turned.

"No, thanks. And anyway, the plan is for you to come back with me, not to make you forget the ARC even exists." Becker took a sip of his coffee.

"Don't want to."

When it happened to office-workers, civilians, they called it a 'burn-out'. When it happened in the military, they called it 'an accident waiting to happen'. Becker didn't taste his coffee and considered.

"I mean, what's the point, really?" Connor continued. "Not like there is one, is it? Future's all set and it's not exactly rainbows and sunshine, is it?"

The correct reply would be: _'so you're just going to do nothing? you think_ that's _going to help?'_.

"People miss you."

Connor glared at him. "I miss people, too. You know, like Professor Cutter. And Stephen."

"And Abby and Sarah and Danny," Becker said, adding, as an afterthought: "Lester, too, most likely."

"Tell me another one." Connor snorted, but there was a hint of a question in the way he looked at Becker now, a spark of interest, of 'wanting to know'.

"You're a part of the team." Becker shrugged. He wasn't violently opposed to admit that yes, he was one of the people who missed Connor, but given the effect the anomalies seemed to have on people's love-lives, he wasn't sure if he really wanted to risk using that particular argument. "You can do things." Like build the anomaly detector, or fix it when it got broken. Like remind people to smile. Like wear a silly hat that somehow suited him perfectly.

"I wanted to be a hero."

"So be one," Becker said, not unreasonably or unkindly, he thought.

Connor groaned and buried his face in his hands. "I want to have a _life_." He looked at Becker. "With, you know, _things_. My own apartment. Free weekends. A boyfriend who thinks I'm cute and smart and other good things. One who doesn't turn out to be dating me 'cause she's getting paid for it."

Becker refrained from commenting any kind of boyfriend would be unlikely to turn out to be a 'she', unless Connor was a lot more obvious than he seemed. "Nobody says you can't have that." Well, not the free weekends, most likely, but ... you made do. An hour here, a night there - even in this line of work, they weren't having a crisis _all_ the time. It merely felt that way sometimes.

Connor looked around. "Not much of an apartment, is it?"

"You should see mine." Not right now, Becker didn't think. To someone like Connor, Becker's apartment probably looked like it belonged to a neat-freak. Still, with a bit of work, Becker rather thought it might meet with Connor's standards of homely messiness.

"Free weekends - well, about as much chance of that as of getting my own parking space at the ARC."

Becker thought that was either very optimistic (regarding the odds of anomalies only popping up on weekdays from now on) or very pessimistic (regarding the chances of someone somewhere approving a request for a personal parking space).

"Which leaves the boyfriend," Connor said. "Now sure, there's someone I fancy, but you know what it's like. I mean, look at Abby."

 _'You mooned over her for years, and then you decided she wasn't what you wanted after all,'_ Becker didn't say. Abby wasn't an _idiot_ ; she was sharp, smart, observant. She had to have known. So maybe it wasn't so much Connor changing his mind as it had been Connor finally getting the hint.

"There's 'someone you fancy'," Becker said. "Could we have a name here?"

Connor squirmed. "That might be a _little_ embarrassing."

"Well, Abby seems to think it's me, so I doubt it could be all that bad," Becker said lightly and not untruthfully; he didn't doubt anything because he was as certain as he could be.

"Abby said that?" Connor looked alarmed.

Becker looked at the movie poster that graced the wall. "She seems to think we'd make a cute couple, even. As does Sarah." He wasn't sure about that last bit, actually, but why wouldn't she?

"Well, I guess you couldn't date someone who wasn't in the know about the anomalies." Connor looked a little more cheerful. "I mean, _if_ you wanted to date someone. Like ... me?"

"Are you suggesting you'll come back to work in exchange for my dating you?"

Connor flushed. Apparently, Becker hadn't managed to make that sound as neutral as he'd intended it to sound. "No, no, of course not, not at all, except, maybe, yes? I mean, fair's fair, right?"

"I don't see what would be fair about it." Which was not to say Becker wasn't considering it. Unlike Abby, Becker didn't really have much tolerance for people making idiots of themselves for 'his' sake.

"Maybe not fair," Connor admitted, "but it could be, well, fun. For you, too, I mean."

"Come back to work tomorrow and I'll think about it."

 

"A request for a leave of absence?" Lester pronounced the word like it was foreign. "I hardly think you are that dispensable, Captain."

"It's not for me," Becker informed him. "For Connor." He didn't add: _retroactively_. Lester would have seen that on the form already.

"Oh, that should be fine then." Lester signed. "I mean, what _does_ he do around here? Not like we can't spare _him_ for a few days. Good work on that, by the way."

"My pleasure, sir." Becker grinned in spite of his resolve not to.

Lester looked at him. "I'm not asking, so don't tell me the answer."

"Yes, sir."


End file.
